Shards

by James Duvall

  Warp Singers only come out at night.

  “Nocturnal creatures...” Sapphire mumbled, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. All at once it hit her. The warp singer had vanished at the breaking of day. “So that would mean...”

  Sapphire turned to the west and watched the sun sinking behind the shardwall. Already the world was painted with reds and purples. Unnatural light flickered near her makeshift cauldron. Sapphire flattened herself against the ground behind a tall cedar, hidden in the shadow of its boughs. Gathering her courage she peered around the trunk, every motion careful and slow. A little comet of purple swirled in the air. The warp singer appeared as though she had torn through the sky itself and stepped into the world, shimmering purple embers falling from her form. Her eyes shone violet from within.

  Seconds passed like hours in the shadow of the cedar tree. The warp singer blinked curious eyes at Sapphire's little cauldron, sniffing at the edge of the murky fluid and then lapping up a sample of the restorative elixir.

  Then something happened that Sapphire could not have predicted. The warp singer reached into her satchel and produced a glass jar and bottled up the rest of her potion. So sudden and unexpected was this theft that Sapphire's indignation flared up like a lit match and she found herself a heartbeat away from marching out of her hiding place and demanding the elixir's return. In the end she could only fume in impotent rage as the potion was taken from her.

  Chapter 25

  Slings and Arrows

  Admiral's Inn, Nobri, Pendric Shard

  I struggle to express the horror of these past days. We have spent days pulling wounded, dying, and the departed from the rubble of the living quarters and banquet hall. So few have survived... Seven save us...

  From the Journal of Isaac Faralon

  “Go for Willoughby, be swift,” Timothy said. He sat on his knees before Christopher's lifeless body. Bloody fingers felt for a pulse and found none.

  “Is... he...” Aebyn started to ask with some delicacy. Timothy shook his head somberly. Christopher Trammel was dead. Neither surgeon nor mage could undo what had been done.

  “Bring Willoughby,” Timothy repeated, the words coming out tired and low.

  “I go,” Aebyn answered and then left through the window.

  For a long time Timothy sat there on the floor and stared at Christopher's corpse. Gingerly he wiped the blood from the man's face and closed his sightless eyes.

  “How has it come to this?” he asked. Such a long, hard-fought journey from penniless boys on the streets of Cahen to this untimely and brutal end. Isla Merindi, such an ill-fitting name for a place so bereft of mercy. “I feel taken, Christopher. This wasn't supposed to go this way. A quick stop on our way to better lives. Now I have lost two crewmen and a dear friend and I am to play the part of a bridger now when I can least afford to.”

  Timothy rose and went to the door. Aches and pains surfaced slowly as adrenaline waned. They ebbed again as he turned back to look into the room and saw blood and death. He willed himself into the hall where he collapsed against a wall and rallied his strength, breathing slow, heavy breaths as he stared at the floor and tried to will vitality back into his limbs. Once he had gathered his wits he returned to the lobby and showed himself to the hotel manager. The manager sent two boys to find the constables immediately and summoned a surgeon to see to Timothy's wounds. When all of the runners were sent the manager ushered Timothy into the guest lounge and handed him a glass of chilled white wine.

  Aebyn returned before the constables arrived.

  “Willoughby?” Timothy asked.

  Aebyn struggled for words and could not seem to stand still, shifting anxiously from side-to-side and furtively adjusting his wings. “Willoughby is... missing,” he said at last, looking up at Timothy with a furrowed brow.

  “Missing?” Timothy asked, voice raising in alarm.

  “Yes, I returned to the Stormbreaker and found Torvald had been left in charge. Willoughby had learned...”

  Aebyn swiveled his head back and forth, then spoke again in hushed tones. “A detective of Fletcher Street has arrived on the island...”

  The glass of wine slipped from Timothy's hand. It bounced off the end table and splashed Aebyn's taloned forelegs with wine. Aebyn shook the droplets off without complaint.

  “He left nearly an hour ago and was coming to see you and Christopher here. I flew the course between here and the ship twice but did not see him on the road. He might have gone inside a building...” Aebyn's tells had become so obvious to Timothy that he could see that even the usually optimistic lighthound did not believe this was the case. With such urgent intelligence as Fletcher Street arriving on Merindi, Willoughby would have come directly to the Admiral's Inn without stopping for anything. Something had happened to him.

  “Did you tell Torvald about... about what happened?” Timothy asked, finding it hard to say his friend's name at the moment.

  Aebyn nodded solemnly. He did not offer a report on Torvald's reaction to the news of Christopher's death. Timothy imagined Torvald's first response was to worry about the state of the ship. As ports went, Merindi was one of the least favorable ports for a sailor to find himself dropped in. No doubt many of the men would then be wishing they had left at their first chance. A lucky few had sailed off on a Kenti freighter the previous evening. It had stopped in not for trade, but to seek treatment for a severely ill boson.

  For the next several hours Timothy made himself available to the constabulary, telling and retelling the story of his arriving at the suite to find the men waiting and poor Christopher's murder. He left out the details that even he was surprised by his sudden and as-yet unexplained ability to produce magical fireballs and the leader's remark about Donovan Skalde being their benefactor. Whatever chance Willoughby had of survival it did not lie in Timothy bringing the island's police to bear against Donovan Skalde.

  Behind the procession of detectives was a shifting crowd of curious souls stopping by to see what there was to see, a problem made all the worse when the bodies were brought down and laid out on the sidewalk. Christopher's was kept separate from his murderers. Through the masses one man stood out to Timothy. He was tall and wore a dark brown duster and showed a singular interest in Timothy. He found his way in with the others but walked past the bodies without stopping to look and instead watched the bridger. Even as interest waned and the crowds thinned the man stayed. Timothy could sense the man's attention with every smuggler's instinct he possessed. This, he had no doubt, was one of the detectives of Fletcher Street, come to investigate the strange circumstance of Samuel Raimes.

  The dark hour had come and gone and the moon was high overhead when the last of the local detectives finally bade Timothy good night. Timothy stood on the sidewalk and watched as the undertaker's wagon bore Christopher away. His spine tingled as the Fletcher Street detective finally approached.

  “Timothy Binks, is it?” the man in the duster asked. “I'm Aaron Kanes, Fletcher Street, Magical Crimes.”

  Timothy turned to face the detective, not bothering to hide his emotions, and why not? Timothy the smuggler and Timothy the bridger could both be exhausted and in mourning this night. “Yes, that's right. If you don't mind, we can talk in the morning. Today has tested me to the limits of my endurance.”

  “I am sure,” Kanes said, “and I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. I know how that can be. If you don't mind, though, I have a few questions and I've waited several hours for only a few minutes of your time.”

  Not an unreasonable request. A bridger would capitulate, Timothy decided. He nodded wearily. “Of course, go ahead.”

  “Have you seen Samuel Raimes?”

  “I have not. I do, however, count one of his party among my own number now. Aebyn the Lighthound. Raimes abandoned him and his fellows aboard a vessel that was shot down just outside of Beronn.” Timothy shook his head in disdain, Raimes' bleeding form haunting his thoughts. “A disgrace to the guild, if you ask me,” he said, distan
tly.

  “He abandoned our duty!” an indignant Aebyn chimed in with a curt nod.

  “I wouldn't know anything about that,” Kanes said, tactfully avoiding casting aspersions on the bridgers.

  Kanes was onto him. Timothy could feel it. A good smuggler developed a sixth sense for that sort of thing. A bad smuggler, well, a bad smuggler hanged. Skilled or not, Timothy would hang for the murder of Samuel Raimes if Detective Kanes sniffed out any proof of what had happened, of who Timothy really was.

  That was how it would end, dangling at the end of a rope for the crime of defending himself from the blade of a nobleman, of a deserter. Timothy let the injustice of it all boil up in him, making his rage all the more genuine. This would be the performance of his life.

  “If Raimes is suggesting I robbed him of his gryphon...” Timothy began, sneering.

  “No, no I'm afraid he's gone missing. Failed to arrive at his posting.”

  “So you've come here?” Timothy asked, arching a brow. “Outside of Donovan Skalde, there is no other mage posted here.”

  “Yes it seems a man claiming to be Raimes was caught trespassing in dwarven lands. Their emissary was not at all pleased by a Deshym incursion into their territories. So it seems he might have come here, to what end I cannot say.”

  “I am sorry, detective Kanes, but none among my party have seen the man since Beronn,” Timothy said. He stifled a genuine yawn. “If you don't mind...”

  “Of course,” Kanes said, tipping his hat to Timothy. “You keep an eye out for him, would you?”

  “Of course,” Timothy said, forcing a wry smile. He tipped his hat to Kanes and strode off into the night with Aebyn at his heels.

  All the way home Timothy could feel the chill of winter in the air. Soon the snow would creep down from the mountains and cover the whole of the island. Detective Kanes did not follow. Aebyn remained quiet until the Admiral's Inn was far behind and the skyport lay just ahead.

  “What are we going to do, Timothy?” Aebyn asked, solemnly. Timothy rested a hand on the gryphon's head but did not answer. He didn't know. All he could think about was Willoughby and Donovan Skalde. It was too much to think that Willoughby might also be dead. He must have been taken. Timothy vowed to take him back.

  “Timothy...” Aebyn said in a hushed voice. Aebyn took a quick step in front of him, his gaze fixed on a place in the dark before them. “Someone is waiting for us...”

  The skyport seemed empty. The gangplank rose up to the Stormbreaker, ascending out of the gloomy vale below. Squinting against the darkness Timothy could not make out a silhouette anywhere along their path.

  “Kanes?” Timothy asked.

  “Are you Timothy Binks, the bridger?” a woman asked, stepping into the moonlight. She was tall and thin, very slight of frame with fiery red hair.

  “I am,” Timothy said, feeling the handle of his pistol in his palm. He had not drawn it yet, but wanted to be ready.

  “Donovan Skalde has your man, Willoughby. I saw them take him from this port earlier this day. I know you have suffered losses...” she said, giving him a calculating look.

  “Where is he?” Timothy demanded.

  “They have gone to the Storm Riot,” the woman answered gravely. “It is an old and angry place.”

  “You're sure of this?”

  The woman nodded. “I have seen them with my own eyes.”

  “Who are you?” Timothy asked, pistol still in hand. The woman looked to be in her early years but spoke with the gravity of an older soul.

  The woman smiled softly. “I am Evelyn Thatch.”

  “The mistweaver?” Aebyn asked.

  Evelyn closed her eyes and shook her head slowly. “No, nothing like that. From the look in your eye I can tell that you do not trust me. Who is this strange woman and why is she telling me these things? Donovan Skalde is a clever and desperate man. There are very few limits to what he might do to achieve his aims. I attacked his encampment last week and he used my old friend as a shield against me...”

  “Very good questions,” Timothy agreed, his patience running thin as a razor's edge. “Why are you here?”

  “I would see Donovan Skalde dead,” Evelyn said. “I believe you may be the man to help me do that.”

  “If I see him, I'll be sure to put a bullet in his chest.”

  Evelyn smiled a knowing smile. “A bridger with a gun, very interesting.”

  “If that concludes our business...?”

  “I'm afraid it does not,” Evelyn said, stepping to block Timothy's path to the Stormbreaker. Timothy drew his pistol in a snap. Aebyn growled a warning.

  With a flick of her hand, a dozen torches cast a pool of light on the shipyard near the gangplank. A man with a knife was crouched there. He stood up in alarm. A look of fury crossed Evelyn's face. She set her teeth and closed her fist in front of her face. The summoned flames collapsed into a singularity where the would-be assassin stood gawking. He screamed as the fire enveloped him, snuffing him out in a tempestuous inferno so hot that Timothy could feel the warmth on his face twenty paces away. The fire went out in a heartbeat, leaving the lingering glow of its heat and the unfathomable darkness of the shipyard.

  “A gesture of good will,” Evelyn said, turning away from her grisly handiwork.

  “Thank you...” Timothy said with a grumble. He was not one for theatrics and knew she could have simply warned him of the danger and not risked Timothy shooting her outright.

  “When you go to Skalde. I only ask that you do not harm the luminarian he holds prisoner,” Evelyn said, sincere worry in her eyes.

  “He has Sapphire?” Aebyn asked, still blinking away the blinding flash of fire.

  Evelyn shook her head. “Aurora.”

  “Well, what does she look like?” Aebyn asked.

  “She has a silver eye and wears a cursed amulet.”

  Evelyn walked past them, back toward the heart of the city. She stopped and knelt by Aebyn's side, reaching into her cloak. Both Timothy and Aebyn took a step back from the powerful mage, Timothy's pistol once again coming to bear. She produced a feather, bright and red as her hair, and tucked it behind Aebyn's ear.

  “Go with my blessing,” she said, and left them both standing there amazed.

  Later in the night, Timothy and Aebyn stood on the Stormbreaker's deck alone. In the distance they could see the place called the Storm Riot. The island's tallest mountain was crowned in dark clouds that turned forever around it, lightning flashing within as though an entire armada had gone to war in the high places. Lost to the distance, Timothy could imagine the sound of thunder rolling up and down the foothills like cannon fire.

  “I am sorry for your loss,” Aebyn said, still watching the distant, flickering lights.

  “Thank you,” Timothy said. He knew there was little love lost between Christopher and Aebyn but appreciated the sentiment all the same. “It has been a hard month for us all. I'm afraid the worst is not over.”

  It was quiet for a while, something Timothy was glad for. The cacophony of the day still spun through his mind and at last in the peaceful darkness he was able to slowly begin processing it all. There was a reason people were afraid of the dark. When they were young it was from the monsters they perceived lurking in the dark corners of their rooms where shifting shadows and the howl of night wind sparked their first acquaintance with fear. When they were grown it was the quiet loneliness of being secluded to one's own thoughts and the brutal honesty of a healthy mind, unshackled by the polite conventions of society.

  Lightning flashed on the Storm Riot. Cold wind rustled through the sails. The deck creaked quietly beneath Timothy's feet. The darkness in Timothy's heart caught up with him there on the deck, sweeping over him and embracing him like the Reaper's icy grip. His spyglass slipped from his trembling fingers, dropping straight down and thudding against the deck like a falling wine bottle. The lens cracked, leaving behind tiny bits of broken glass as it rolled away from the point of impact. Aebyn looked down at
it, then up at him with worry in his shining eyes.

  Timothy knelt beside him, scooping up the broken spyglass and stuffing it in his pockets without inspecting the damage. It could be replaced. Christopher could not. He was confronted by the reality that he would face the trials ahead without his lifelong friend. No one was saying it, but few believed Willoughby was still alive. If he had not been killed already, he would soon go and join the others. Timothy Binks would leave one more grave along this road he was walking. He felt the accusing weight of his many transgressions heavy upon his shoulders and found he lacked the strength to stand. He wondered if this was how men felt when the Night Warden came for them. In his mind's eye he stood and turned around to see the Night Warden's wolfish gaze hard upon him, eyes red and glowing, raising a claw to strike him from this world and deliver him unto his judgment, and who was he to protest?

  Timothy felt Aebyn's presence draw close to him as the lighthound circled around to face him and pressed his forehead to Timothy's own. Curling his arms around the gryphon's neck, Timothy held Aebyn close and quietly grieved his losses.

  Chapter 26

  Nightborne

  The Mistwood, Isla Merindi, Pendric Shard

  It is my sad duty to report that the number of survivors is far outstripped by the missing and deceased. So far all we know is that the arclorus was destroyed. The worst of the damage was centered there. Of my pupils only Amber, Donovan, Evelyn, and Garrett have survived. Four. Four out of nearly forty.

  From the Journal of Isaac Faralon

  The warp singer bounded through dark woodlands, lit by the glow of the churning mist beneath her as she stretched her broad white and violet wings to propel herself up the side of a rocky gorge. Sapphire followed as close as she dared.

  What am I going to do if I catch her?

  The warp singer's endurance seemed limitless compared to Sapphire's flagging strength. Twice during the dark hour Sapphire thought she'd lost the warp singer, only to find her a few minutes later studying the northern horizon with her lantern lifted high.